According to an insider at Deadline, Frank Darabont, the executive producer/director/writer of AMC’s Walking Dead has let the season one writing staff go. Darabont wrote two episodes of the first season, and re-worked the other four, which brings into question if Darabont had to have a conversation with himself on why he had to fire…himself? While it isn’t unusual to let writing staff members go as you move into new seasons – and really, The Simpsons was never the same after Conan left – it might be troubling to some to hear this news as The Walking Dead is the hot, hot show on cable right now.
Fear not zombie fans, Darabont might be looking at freelancers for the next 13 episodes, but if you look closely at the writing credits from the last couple of aired episodes, you’ll see Robert Kirkman and Glen Mazzara appear. So will next season’s writing team consist of Darabont, Kirkman, and Mazzara? Signs point to Yes.
5 Comments
As long as it doesnt turn into some kind of resident evil with super zombies being ‘grown’ (which is a genuine concern of mine after watching the other night), I don’t care who is writing.
JMS essentially did the same thing on Babylon 5, and there was no outcry.
In the case of B5, I think the series was slightly diminished by not occasionally having a different writer’s “voice” be present for those 3+ years…but in the case of B5 it was Joe’s decision that he simply wasn’t going to be able to tell the story he wanted to tell unless he wrote all the words.
This case: 13 episodes are going to be written exclusively by the executive producer…who is already heavily involved in scripts…it doesn’t seem like such a shock to me.
as long as it doesnt get in the way of their books….
And as long as the writing and story doesn’t crash like Heroes:Season 3, I’ll be just as happy to see them keep making episodes.
Didn’t Kirkman write one of the episodes himself?